Tag: Business Strategies

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard about the new augmented mobile app exploration game, Pokémon Go, that has become an almost overnight sensation.

Downloads of the game have surpassed even the most well-known apps, including Tinder, Snapchat and Bumble and it’s percentage of daily active users has doubled that of Twitter. Users around the world are spending a shocking amount of time travelling around communities, visiting local restaurants, stores, and other businesses in their search for Pokémon. Some even go so far as driving to other nearby towns in attempts to “catch” more rare types of Pokémon.

Many businesses, both big and small have caught on to the possibilities of this growing phenomenon and are capitalizing on it by using creative marketing campaigns and app purchases to drive large amounts of traffic through their doors, with the ultimate goal of converting players into paying customers.

Health Clubs can easily jump on this growing craze at virtually no cost and with minimum allocation of time and resources–all you need to do is know how to play the game.

There are many different ways you can use Pokémon Go to attract local players to your location and, hopefully, convert them into paying customers.

1. Is your Club a “Gym” or a “PokeStop”? The two types of locations this game that attract players in droves are called Gyms and PokeStops. Thus, either of these locations can be used in any strategy you choose to promote colossal sales. Pokémon Go runs off of an augmented reality HUD (also known as a heads-up display) of the real world. Each player creates an avatar “trainer” in the game that explores the virtual world as they navigate the real one. Players flock to PokeStops to collect rewards, collect Pokeballs and collect potions. PokeStops are usually buildings or businesses (in the real world). Although there is no official map that lists and locates all the Gyms and PokeStops, players have uncovered a workaround by using a searchable world map developed for another game by Niantic called “Ingress”. Players realized that the map for Ingress maps almost every PokeStop and Gym, the only difference being they are known as “portals” in Ingress.

To access this map, install the Ingress app on your phone and sign in with your google account. (If you don’t have one it’s very simple to make one and takes very little time). Once set up, you will be directed to a searchable map with all the listed “portals” which, again, are actually Gyms or PokeStops.

While many of these stops are businesses, even if you’re isn’t, there is most likely a PokeStop or Gym nearby that will still drive traffic your way.

2. Host a Lure party! Many businesses are jumping on this marketing strategy. Here’s how it works. A “lure module” is something you can buy in the app to lure wild Pokémon to a location, which, needless to say, attracts players to that location as well.

Businesses typically will buy a package of lure modules and advertise a “Pokémon Go Lure Party” for one night. Each lure is active for 30 minutes so businesses will set them to be back-t- back in order to attract the most amount of players possible for the entirety of the party. This can be extremely effective if your business is or is near a PokeStop. It’s easy to set up and costs virtually nothing. Let’s break down the cost just to show how little you need to spend to reap massive rewards:

Let’s say you decide to spend $100. This gives you about 14,500 Pokecoins which is the in-game currency. An eight-pack of Lures costs about 680 Pokecoins. Let’s break this down some more to see the real ROI this presents:

14,500 Pokecoins/680 = 21 eight-packs of Lures

(21*8)/2 = 84 Hours

$100/84 hours = $1.19 per hour

So, at the price of about a dollar per hour, you can attract crowds of players to your place of business. We also recommend offering special deals for Lure Party attendees to encourage even more participation.

3. If you are located near a Poke Gym, host a Battle! There are three different “Teams” that “trainers” (users) can be a part of in the game. These teams are called Mystic, Valor and Mystic. Teams “battle” each other at PokeGyms and the winning team “takes control” of that gym. As a result of this, users are constantly meeting at gyms anyway, so there is no need to purchase Lures, so you’ll have a constant influx of new potential customers.

To find out if your business is close to a gym, you can refer back to that Ingress map or open the game in your phone and look for tall building-like structures with Pokémon at the top. They are pretty hard to miss so you will see right away which ones are closest to your location. Businesses can take advantage of these PokeGyms in a number of different ways. Most of these methods rely on some creative marketing on your part. Here are just a few ideas:

• Customized Pokémon Gym Badges: Everyone loves getting free stuff. You can easily customize these badges to incorporate your business name and logo when ordering from a supplier. Simply search online for “Pokémon Gym Badge” and “custom orders” to find suppliers.
• Winner Discounts: Advertise which team has current control of your gym and offer discounts on memberships, packages, merchandise, etc for that team. You can do this on a poster, sandwich board, or any other physical advertising materials you have at your disposal.
• Utilize Social Media: I’m sure by now you’ve seen followers on facebook posting screenshots of the game. Follow their example and post ongoing battles with searchable hashtags such as #pokemongo or #teamvalor.
• Organize a PokeHunt: Here’s another example of a lucrative creative marketing tactic. This strategy is allows for a little more flexibility as it doesn’t rely solely on how close your business is to a Pokestop or Pokegym. Organize a Pokémon hunt that ends at your businesses with an after party to make a lasting impression and facilitate brand recognition. This is fairly simple to set up as it just requires an advertisement stating the start time of the hunt. Allow time for players to show up, and then have your staff (wearing your logo of course) lead them on this excursion. This is a really great way to promote brand awareness and establish your business as an inviting community that players or potential clients want to return to.
• Social Media Deals: Last but not least, offer discounts for clients who post pictures of Pokémon they find at or around your facility with a hashtag that names your business. This spreads awareness on social media and let’s other players know what types of Pokémon are near you.

While it is still in its early stages, the Pokémon Go app has already presented numerous possibilities for businesses both big and small. As new updates and developments are added to the game, the opportunities will only continue to grow. If you’re business hasn’t jumped on the Pokémon Go band-wagon, it’s about time you started!

Can you believe we are already half-way through 2016? We’ve gathered up 4 of the latest fitness trends that have surfaced this year as well as what’s to come.

1. Exercise as an Experience

This developing trend views fitness as a lifestyle rather than a painful chore to “get over with” before moving on to more enjoyable activities. You may have noticed the emergence of smaller, specialized, boutique studios such as Crossfit, yoga, boxing, MMA and indoor cycling in recent years. This trend is a direct result of clients looking to get stronger, fitter and participate in a more social, intimate, and less stressful environment. Studies have proven that partner workouts or workouts done with a friend produce better fitness results and increase client motivation to reach fitness goals. These smaller studios provide a place where people with similar interests and fitness goals can come together and view exercise as a social and enjoyable experience. That’s not to say larger health clubs can’t tap into this specialized fitness trend. Many facilities are incorporating these boutique classes into their list of offerings. For example, there has been a notable increase in large gyms adding Zumba classes, boot camps, barre classes, and ever increasingly popular themed races and outdoor obstacles to establish their facility as a hub that people are drawn to have an atypical, community experience outside the gym walls. There has also been an increase in demand for body weight training exercises (which actually ranked No. 2 as a trend to watch for 2016 and beyond) as well as high-intensity interval training (HIIT) which involves short burst of high energy exercises followed by short periods of rest and is crammed into a 25 to 30 minute workout. Clients are looking for a less time consuming workout that they can easily fit into their work and social schedule that still produces almost immediate results.

2. Professional Trainers and Instructors

Gone are the days when fresh out of college staff are sufficient enough to teach clients proper form and offer fitness advice. Credentials matter. Recently, professionals certified by ACE or ACSM and other recognized agencies are in high demand. Health clubs should strive to ensure at least half of their staff includes individuals with certifications from accredited agencies. These trainers are able to challenge customers, keep them safe AND develop workouts tailored to a client’s needs. When clients see results, this increases their motivation to reach their goals and they’re willingness to keep coming back to your club! The focus should be on developing trust between trainers and members rather than spending the majority of their time recruiting new clients.

3. Functional Fitness

To put it simply, clients will get bored of the same old routines, so switch it up! Keeping workouts fresh will keep members motivated and enable faster fitness results. Interval training has been shown to be extremely successful as it allows the combination of different exercise methods to create versatile workouts. Some of the most popular examples include body weight training with elliptical running, indoor cycling with boxing, strength training and rowing and more. The key is to provide trainers with as many workout methods as possible to keep clients interested and dedicated.

4. Think outside the box…err we mean gym!

In the world of smartphones and social media, we are more connected than ever before. This means that trainers can influence client lifestyles and continue to assist with fitness goals outside of the gym. Apps that track nutrition choices, out-of-the-gym physical activities, heartrates and more are being adopted by health clubs to help trainers add value to existing workout regimes.

Additionally, clubs have begun adding outdoor activities such as obstacle course training, boot camps, marathon prep training, and sports league pre-season training to their repertoires. This is a great way to connect with clients’ interests outside the gym!

The key thing to take away from all of this is to keep the big picture in mind. If you are considering adding one or all of these trends to your club, understand that this is an ongoing social experience that will need to be constantly updated year to year. Give clients as many opportunities as possible to find their fitness niche, have an enjoyable and successful workout experience, and establish yourself as a trusted health and wellness community hub.

Remember a little something called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010? This federal statute has completely changed the landscape of corporate fitness programs. In an effort to reduce health insurance costs, the ACA established new incentives and policies to increase the accountability to corporate fitness and wellness programs.

These incentives can be broken down to two types of programs:

Activity –Based: With “activity-only” programs, employees simply have to engage in a certain activity in order to be rewarded. For example, employees might be required to run for 45 minutes three days a week, follow a particular exercise plan, or stick to a strict diet. The point is, they don’t have to reach a specific weight, measurement or numerical goal to be rewarded.

Outcome-Based: This type of program requires employees to attain a specific wellness goal. This can include hitting a specific numerical goal, such as weight, BMI or blood pressure measurement. This can also mean quitting smoking or drinking. When employees achieve their measurable goal, the benefits kick in. Some corporate programs will issue up to 30% in refunds when a goal is met.

What does this mean for fitness clubs?

Well, first of all, if your club currently doesn’t offer corporate wellness memberships, you are missing out on some serious revenue. To keep up with ever-changing corporate programs, clubs have had to rethink their programming and product strategies. Clubs must offer outcome-based membership programs that include efficient documentation of results. Club operators must track everything from participation to outcomes including biometrics, health improvements, smoking cessation, etc. so that corporations can present these results in comprehensive formats for insurers.

Health facilities can capitalize on this new trend in corporate fitness incentives. Instead of just offering corporate memberships with lower pricing, clubs can work with corporate HR departments to add certain programs and services to these memberships in order to add value and increase the company’s wellness benefits. For example, one company worked with a client corporation to create a 12-week program that aimed to lower cholesterol. Employees that participated in the program reduced their cholesterol by 5%, resulting in about $18,618 in healthcare savings for their company. Clubs can also work with corporations to create competitions. For example, create a weight-loss competition where the team wins a monetary prize and a full refund of their registration fees if they maintain their weight for a specified amount of time. The possibilities are endless!

The goal is to establish your club as a valuable centerpiece to the companies’ wellness program. Don’t simply watch from the sidelines. Set up your club to be part of the ongoing effort to promote health and wellness in the work environment. It’s not going away any time soon!

It’s no longer a secret that blogging is one of the most important features on your website if your goal is to improve SEO, increase conversion rates, and generate leads.

97 Display manages hundreds of fitness websites globally, and our most successful clients have a few things in common, one of which is that they all blog.

Blogging doesn’t have to be scary. Many of our clients aren’t professional writers and fear that the content they produce won’t be helpful or that people simply won’t read it. Ultimately they fear wasting their time over something that may not generate any immediate results. But the fact is that blogging can be used for technical and SEO benefits… not just for audience education. This means that even if no one ever reads your blog it can still be beneficial to your website! Let’s discover 3 ways to supercharge your blog for SEO:

1. Backlinks & Sitelinks

Your blog is one of the most natural ways to include large numbers of backlinks & sitelinks on your website.

Backlinks: hyperlinks on your website to other URLS (such as your social media business profiles)

Sitelinks: Hyperlinks on your page to other pages on your website (such as “click here to view our new schedule)

Backlinks and Sitelinks are beneficial to your SEO because it communicates to Google specific keywords that your URL is talking about. The more backlinks & sitelinks, the more confident search engines are about the content on your site and the more likely you will rank higher in search engines.

One of my favorite way to naturally include backlinks on your blog is to end EVERY blog post with this:

“Learn more at our social media channels!

Timothy’s Fitness Facebook Page

Timothy’s Fitness Twitter Page

Timothy’s Fitness Google+ Page”

Where each of the lines hyperlink directly to the respective social media page.

BUT DON’T STOP THERE!

Next: Go to each other the social media channels and link back to that specific blog post.

● Facebook: New blog post! Learn more about our group training spring schedule:

www.fitnesstimothy.com/blog/group-training-spring-schedule

● Twitter: New blog post! Learn more about our group training spring schedule:

www.fitnesstimothy.com/blog/group-training-spring-schedule

● Google+: New blog post! Learn more about our group training spring schedule:

www.fitnesstimothy.com/blog/group-training-spring-schedule

This will create a web of links back and forth between your blog and your social media channels.

Get into the habit of doing this! Over time you’ll build a strong web of backlinks between your website URL and your social media channels which will clearly communicate to search engines the content and services of your website…. which is essential for top rankings!

2. Be Smart With Your Blog Titles

Your blog title is the most important aspect of your blog post. It is what tells search engines what your blog is about and it has the most SEO influence.

Avoid titles like:

“Ten Fat Burning Tips for January”

For a fitness business website, this title has no strategic keywords in place. It has no location keywords, and no service keywords. While it may read nicely it’s missing out on the natural opportunity to plug more strategic keywords on your website as titles!

Here is an example of an SEO friendly alternative:

“Beat the Cold: Denver’s Best Fitness Program Tips for Burning Fat this January”

This title communicates the same content but includes valuable keywords such as “Denver” and “Fitness Program.” This is especially helpful for small towns and surrounding suburbs that you want to rank in. Remember, you can always go back in time to old blog posts and update titles with these keywords!

3. Include Video & Image Tags. Videos and images will increase user engagement and improve the likelihood that your readers will actually read your blogs.

Just placing images & videos on your sites without tagging them, however, does nothing for your SEO.

An image is a perfect place to place otherwise awkward keywords in a perfectly “Google-friendly” way. Anytime you upload and image to your blog, simply name it something keyword rich- like “Denver Personal Training and Fitness Classes” EVEN if the picture is something completely unrelated.

Search engines will crawl your blog, however they can’t see your images – they can only see your description of the image. By naming your image something keyword rich you’re telling search engines that this image has to do with your specific keywords. This is HUGE! Any image or video gives you an opportunity to plug as many keywords as you can into the description or title of that image.

Since your website visitors most likely won’t see the title of your image, you won’t have to worry about how readable your keywords are- just make sure they are there!

Learn more tips for improving your website performance at www.97display.com!

Authored By:

Timothy Sarazen – Director of Operations at 97 Display.

97 Display Creates Websites & Lead Generating Campaigns for Fitness Business. Learn if 97 Display can help your fitness website! Visit www.97display.com.

Have you ever heard of Endowed Progress Effect?

It’s the idea that when we feel we have made progress towards a specific goal, we are more committed to reaching that goal. If we do not recognize any progress we are making towards a goal, the more likely we will abandon all efforts to reach it. So, the key to this phenomenon is perception.

So where is this going?

Loyalty Programs. Yes, it turns out that this psychological concept has resulted in the ever-increasing popularity of loyalty programs across all types of businesses. Coffee shops, large-restaurants chains, merchandise stores, and spas have all adopted this trend, and more recently, so too has the health and fitness industry.

So what loyalty and retention strategies can you use to accomplish this?

There is a myriad of strategies to choose from. Awarding clients “free” points up front is a great tactic. Punch cards have proven to be extremely successful across all businesses. The idea is that once a person has had all the slots on their card punched, they will be rewarded. For example, you can give members a “punch” every time a member comes in per week or uses a certain machine. A great tactic that coincides with this is to start them off with three or so punches (for signing up, being a new member, etc.) so that they feel they are that much closer to their reward. This plays right into the Endowed Progress Effect because we know that people work harder to achieve a goal when they feel like they are close to reaching it. Rewards for full punch cards can range from a discount, free item, or a free class or program.

The best part is, you are rewarding members for actions they are most likely already doing including attending classes and referring friends and family, but you have just added a huge incentive to increase this behavior. That client may not be more inclined to refer more friends, purchase more classes and buy more merchandise just to reach that full punch card reward. The revenue and recognition possibilities from these programs are endless! Excited yet? Well, before you begin your new endeavor into loyalty programs at your facility, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Ability to Document Progress:

We mentioned before the Endowed Progress effect is based on perception. This means that clients need to see physical proof that they are making progress for these programs to be effective. Make sure you are able to document when clients reach each milestone.

2. Instant gratification:

First, clearly define each milestone of your motivational program and then ensure that clients who meet them are rewarded immediately. If clients have to wait forever to receive their prize, they will lose steam in their efforts to reach the next milestone or their ultimate goal.

3. Achievable goals!

It is physically impossible to lose 30 pounds (at a healthy pace) in a week! Therefore, make sure to speak with clients about their goals and manage expectations. Remember the flip side of the Endowed Progress Effect: When there is no perceived progress, this results in demotivation.

4. Invest in management software that tracks client progress:

If your programs rely on client information that you cannot integrate with your current software solution, this is counterproductive. If your software solution cannot provide accurate results, clients will become frustrated and less motivated to keep working towards their goals.

5. Valuable and Relevant Rewards:

If you are a fitness facility, rewarding members with ice cream coupons would not be beneficial to your clients and would consider moving business elsewhere. Instead, reward members with merchandise with your company logo, such as shirts, hats, water bottles, towels or any other items that reflect back on your brand and the industry.

A rewards program–if implemented correctly–can be a major source of revenue and growth for your business. Build relationships with your clients by offering efficient, trackable, result-driven programs to promote brand loyalty and establish a community that members and prospects want to return to.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. It’s an age old proverb and one that many successful entrepreneurs live by. The fact of the matter is, failure happens–things fall through. What defines your brand and business is how you bounce back. True success comes from those who face failure head-on, get back on that horse, go back to the drawing board and never, ever quit.

So how DO you bounce back from a failed business-specifically in the fitness and sports industry? Here are three ways to consider:

1. Explain the failure and don’t make excuses: Transparency is key

Transparency is key and clients will appreciate your honesty. Own your failure–everyone makes mistakes. By admitting your mistakes and making it clear how much time and effort you will allocate to improving your products and services, you will give them the impression that you take your business extremely seriously.

2. Analyze the fail

The trick is to view failure as a great learning experience. Before you embark on a brand new business plan, take dedicated time to evaluate the factors and elements that lead to the failure. You need to really understand what worked and what didn’t. This way, you don’t have to completely scrap your old plan. Instead, you can build upon what worked and reevaluate what didn’t. Did clients love your product but hate your customer service? Were your prices too high? Dig deep and really analyze your client data.

3. Ask for Help

Don’t do it alone. You need to find other professionals and services that can help streamline your business. Are you tracking everything –from memberships, class packages, rentals– on paper? This can be both time consuming and stressful and can also lead to numerous inaccuracies and financial loss. An all-in-one secure management software is key. Not only can you track all your client data and class schedules, you will also be able to set up automatic billing, create a customized app for online purchases, send targeted email campaigns, access accurate reporting and more! The more you streamline your business processes, the more time and effort you can put into creating those exceptional, personalized customer experiences at your facility.

4. Refocus your brand

While you are analyzing your client data, identify your target audience. Was a vast majority of your clientele composed of young adults? Senior citizens? Elite athletes?

Once you recognize your main client base, focus your efforts on delivering products and services to this specific demographic. You need to create exceptional client experiences to attract and retain members. For example, if the majority of your clients are between 15 and 25 years old, you may want to focus on group classes or specific sports skills training to get these youngins’ in the door.

5. Actually Do it.

Now that you have evaluated what works and what doesn’t, refocused your brand, sought help and created a new business plan: set it in motion. Don’t let the failure freeze your ambitions. Most successful businesses fail more than once but it is only after failure that you will find success. Bounce back!

Have you ever wondered if there’s really any point to your retention strategy? You offer everything under the sun, do double back-flips, and consider giving away your first-born any time a member tells you they’re ready to leave, and then they go ahead and leave anyway. Ever get the feeling that there’s just nothing you can do?

The fact is, everyone in the industry wonders, but it’s something we try not to acknowledge. We hold on to the idea that we must continually try new approaches and inexhaustibly explore all possible avenues, plus a few impossible ones, and never give up on the lofty goal of retaining 100 percent of our members. Well, what if that’s the wrong approach? What if, instead, we conceded that we never will retain 100 percent of our members, and that our energy would be better spent on other aspects of running our clubs? What if we actively prioritized new sales over member retention?

These are questions Rob Bishop and Barry Klein, owners of Elevations Health Club in Scotrun, Pennsylvania and regular contributors to Athletic Business magazine, hash out in a recent article for Athletic Business. Having focused on retention over sales for two decades — never employing salespeople or using high-pressure sales techniques — Bishop and Klein found themselves one day wondering why, despite all their daily concerted efforts to get members to stick with their gym, they nevertheless almost always lost the members they were expending energy to retain. As long-time gym owners, they considered their “retention program” nothing more than everything they did everyday and every dollar they spent on their staff, facilities, and programming. As they put it, “Is your club clean? Are people greeted properly? Are members well-integrated into your facility with training programs, group fitness classes, seminars and other offerings?” Those elements, along with other offerings vital to the success of any club, are critical for keeping any member signed up for any length of time, they argue.

Given that, they realized that most members “cancel for reasons that are beyond our control — relocation, financial reasons, work conflicts. And while reasons such as ‘no time’ might be shorthand for ‘I don’t want to be a member anymore,’ it’s clear to us that once someone has crossed that threshold, we are not going to bring them back.”

If that’s the case, they ask, what can gyms do? The answer may lie in shifting the focus of your business premise, so that rather than privileging retention, you start thinking more about sales. “Our point isn’t to give up,” they write. “It’s to focus on something we think we can more directly impact and to some degree control.” Thus, Bishop and Klein are trying out a “sales focused” approach that aims to attract many happy members. Basically, they consider happy members ambassadorial assests — vital elements of the community who spread the word to new potentially happy members. It’s a subtle shift, but focusing more on sales than retention — while still aiming to keep members as happy as possible from day to day — allows the duo to value referrals even more than a forever commitment from a member (which, they say, is an ideal that doesn’t exist). For example, if the stated purpose of “bring a friend” event is to acquire new members rather than to keep existing members engaged, they now might find themselves, if spots are limited, turning away a member in favor of a guest. This isn’t something they ever would have done previously.

That’s not to say it isn’t still worth trying to keep members forever. Who knows? Perhaps it’s possible and the industry just hasn’t yet discovered the right lever or formula? Still, it might be worth exploring strategies that are potentially more realistic — if for no other reason than achieving greater peace of mind. “The real difference will be this,” Bishop and Klien write. “When a member who has sent us 10 referrals suddenly cancels, we’re not going to stress about it anymore…. The trick is to have a gym full of happy members, regardless of how long they are with us.”

At the climbing gym I frequent, there’s a man whose left arm ends in a stump. He’s a veteran who lost his hand in Iraq. I know how hard it is scaling those thirty-foot walls with all my limbs intact; watching this guy, I can’t help but feel humbled and awed. He does it with no special accommodations. He just figures out what will work for him, and up he goes.

Indoor climbing is especially flexible in this way — the whole point is to do what you have to do to get to the top, no matter what particular challenges you might be facing. But, what about other, less universally approachable sports or exercises? What about just watching sports? How can we make participating in sports, working out, and being a fan in the stands more accessible for anyone who wants to take part?

There are a few things to consider as you gauge your facility’s accessibility and think about what changes, if any, to make. First, there’s the ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act. Enacted in 1990, this law requires public places and commercial facilities to comply with guidelines that allow for wheelchair accessibility and other disability considerations. Facilities constructed before 1990 are not required to meet the specific stipulations of the ADA — such as that wheelchair spaces be at least 36 inches wide, with equal, adjacent space for a companion — but such facilities are under obligation to remove existing barriers. And any facility refurbishing its space must bring it into ADA-compliance.

So, for example, when Hampton-Dumont High School in Hampton, Iowa, decided to replace its fifty-five-year-old wooden bleachers recently, it had to create a new deck with room for six wheelchairs, plus companion seats, and a ramp. The project’s total cost was about $20,000 — but the alternative, building an entirely new stadium, would have cost the school at least a quarter of a million dollars. The lesson here is that changes you make to bring your facility into ADA-compliance, whether you run a gym, niche fitness center, or sports venue, need not cost a fortune. The money you spend will pay off. In Hampton-Dumont’s case, the school forged a better relationship with the community after the reconstruction because now no one was shut out. In the end, more tickets were sold at events.

If you’re not ready to refurbish, there are other steps you can take to make your facility more welcoming of people with special considerations. If you’re a gym with regular exercises classes, consider the possibility of designing a wheelchair class. You’d need to hire an experienced instructor and make sure the room where the class will be held is completely accessible. Also consider hosting workshops about exercising with a disability, and see whether you can create areas in your free-weight, cardio, and machine spaces solely for wheelchair users or others who need particular physical accommodations.

In addition, think about how you can make your commitment to inclusivity known. No matter what kind of facility you run, the more you spread the word about your accessibility, and the more you make it known that you welcome all kinds of members, the greater your standing in the community will be, and the more chances you’ll have of attracting an untapped segment of your local population.

Overall, you want to think in terms of being an ally to folks who are differently abled. As an organization dedicated in some form or other to physical activity, you bear a particular onus: how to enable physical activity for everyone. When it comes to issues of accessibility, gyms and sports facilities have a chance to shine.

For a few years, my son and I loved going to Bucca, a pizza place in our neighborhood. The food, first of all, was excellent and affordable, but what we liked most were the friendly staff that greeted us by name when we walked in and the cool décor: Bucca’s manager had a photography hobby and covered the walls in photos that were always interesting to look at and discuss. We were crushed when we walked by one day and found the name changed to Bucolino’s. The menu was similar, but when we entered no one recognized us and, worst of all, the photos were gone. In their place were bright, graffiti-style murals that might have been welcome in some other context, but that felt so jarring and ugly in our beloved space.

We ate at Bucolino’s only once. When I asked the waitstaff what had happened, all I got in response was a curt “new owner.” This new owner was too busy to speak with us. It’s a shame, because the food was still pretty great, but no one had made any effort to sell us on the new identity. I kept thinking that if the new venue had tried to reach out to Bucca’s customer base, maybe we would have felt differently; maybe we would have given it a chance. So I was interested to read a recent blog on IHRSA’S website that takes up the issue of new ownership. The blog asks: “How can we market a club that’s under new ownership to let consumers know we’re making major changes to what had been a mismanaged facility?” Bucca had never been mismanaged, but the question stood: How do you let your customers know things are going to change?

Paul Brown, CEO of Face2Face Retention Systems in Queensland, Australia, told IHRSA, “When you take over the reins of an existing business, be excited, be bold, and be loud.” Joe Cirulli, Founder and CEO of Gainsville Health & Fitness Center, suggests making it a priority to ensure the facility is in tip-top shape, connect with existing staff and make efforts to meet their needs, and use word-of-mouth advertising to let the public know. All of these pieces of advice are good ones. I wish Bucolino’s had followed them. If you’re taking over a new facility, spread the word, and — whether there were problems that need fixing or you’re taking an already great business to new heights — advertise widely and positively about the change. A few specific steps to consider taking:

• Hold town-hall-style meetings with members, seeking useful feedback. This could be done in real life or virtually. Using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to elicit members’ ideas about what to keep for the facility’s new incarnation and what to alter would be a great way both to let your customers know about the change and to include them in your process.

• As Brown suggests, “Solicit editorial coverage in local and regional newspapers and websites. Invite interviews and offer to submit prewritten pieces.” The goal in taking these steps would be to inform the public and give yourself some degree of control in the way news of the new ownership is announced and received.

• Plan a grand relaunch celebration. Go out of your way to make the new incarnation a big deal. Rather than doing it without a word, like Bucolino’s did, almost even pretending it didn’t happen, blow horns and send up flares. Invite local dignitaries and offer incentives to get both members and prospectives in the door. During relaunch events, make yourself available and accessible to anyone who might have questions about the facility’s new direction.

• Save yourself time and money by investing in an all-in-one gym management software to streamline your business practices. Do your research to find a software solution to address all of your needs. For example, more health and fitness management software include features such as trainer scheduling, membership management, a point of sale system, and a sophisticated member check-in system compatible with most mobile devices.

It doesn’t take much to make a facility under new ownership as great — or much better — than whatever existed before. But you do have to make some efforts.

I have a confession to make: Exercise bores me. Don’t get me wrong — I love staying fit, and I love the way I feel after a great workout, but no matter what exercise routine I try, after a while I get bored and want something new. For a while I was into spin classes. Then it was Zumba. Then aquatic aerobics, HIIT-style repetitions, and just plain jogging. Now I’m all about indoor climbing. I was starting to think there’s something wrong with me, but then I stumbled across a post on the “Be Active Your Way” blog, a publication of the Department of Health and Human Services. Written by Alexandra Black, a dietician and IHRSA’s Health Promotion Manager, the article is not about keeping exercise interesting — but it nevertheless put my mind at ease and inspired me to continue trying new routines.

What the article is about is this: using trial and error to determine the best workouts for individuals. “Each person,” Black writes, “has a unique genetic makeup, different life experiences, and varied medical histories that make it nearly impossible to prescribe one great diet or one great fitness plan for all.” Because of this, she says, the best way for individuals to figure out what works for them is through trial and error. The health and medical industries are beginning to recognize this, and the result of moving away from a one-size-fits-all mindset is better care and better long-term health for people. Black puts it this way: “As the trend towards individualized healthcare continues, we’re recognizing that every person is different, and that treating them as such — both in healthcare and in wellness — is often where the real magic happens.”

Which brings me back to my boredom issue. Reading Black’s thoughts on trial and error made me realize that the only way for me to find a routine that doesn’t eventually bore me is to keep trying new ones — and that it’s okay to do so. Maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet, and I need to keep searching until I do. Or maybe it’s the case that my genetic makeup, life experiences, and medical history make me a person who needs constant changes in her workout routine in order to most benefit from working out. Whatever the case, thinking about fitness as something that requires an individualized approach completely changes the way I think about working out. It gives me a feeling that I have permission to keep trying whatever I want to try.

Why am I sharing all this? Because chances are that an individualized fitness approach is something that would appeal to your members too. Of course, if you have personal trainers or some kind of personalized workout program, you already promote individualized fitness — but doing so explicitly could put your members at ease (enough so that they renew their memberships and talk your facility up to all their friends and social network connections). Defining individualized fitness and explaining its benefits — through posters, emails, social media, and one-on-one sales and promotion pitches — can help your members feel freer to engage in their own trial and error, giving new workouts and exercises a try, experimenting until they know what works best for them. And helping them in that way greatly increases the chances that they’re going to keep coming back to you.

I was surfing around on the Internet the other day when a jarring Club Industry headline caught my attention: “American Physical Inactivity Reaches Six-Year High, Club Memberships Increase.” It doesn’t seem to make any sense, but according to a recent report from the Physical Activity Council (PAC), a group made up of IHRSA and five other sports and manufacturer associations, it is the case that 82.7 million Americans (28.3 percent) were physically inactive in 2014, an increase of 0.7 percent from 2013. It is also the case that health club memberships have grown by 18.6 percent since 2008, with the total number of health club visits in 2014 surpassing five billion for the second year in a row. Health club members checked in an average of 103 times in 2014, an all-time high.

What does it all mean? The data, based on nearly 11,000 online interviews carried out with a nationwide sample of individuals and households, suggest that the country’s fitness-related crises — obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and the like — are here to stay, and perhaps only getting worse. But at the same time, more and more people are joining health clubs and they’re visiting their clubs more often.

It can be hard, with statistics, to make meaningful interpretations and arrive at some kind of truth. But it seems safe to say, at the very least, that the news from the Physical Activity Council is both good and bad. As Tom Cove, PAC chairman and president and CEO of the Sports and Fitness Industry Association put it, “While we can look at [the physical inactivity] number in a negative light, I would like to use it as a wakeup call to not only our industry but the rest of society. It’s time we put our time and resources into industry initiatives and national campaigns to increase physical activity.”

In other words, the number may be alarming, but we can use it to start instigating change. And there’s no group better positioned to do so than the fitness industry — especially given that other statistic, the steadily growing popularity of fitness centers and health clubs. Joe Moore, IHRSA President and CEO, explained it this way: “These numbers demonstrate the important role health clubs play in helping more and more Americans improve their overall health and wellbeing.”

Thus, while the two statistical figures seem contradictory, they’re really sending the same message: Venues that enable and promote fitness and opportunities for exercise are a vital part of the equation when it comes to keeping the country healthy, and we, as an industry, need to step up our efforts to reverse the trend toward greater physical inactivity.

In practical terms, maybe this means it’s time for your club to become more involved in your community and to actively seek out members of the community who lack physical activity. Programs that create incentive for such people to try out your facility and that then support their efforts to sustain a more active lifestyle could work wonders—and could lead to benefits for both them and your club. We spend so much time focusing on physical activity, but maybe what we need to do now is shift our attention to physical inactivity.